We recently visited Woodfest Wales. It was more Forestry than Woodcraft but still had lots of stalls selling handmade furniture as well as a huge 2nd hand tool area (I had to keep my wallet firmly in my pocket whilst there!). It was family friendly and had lots of interesting things going on so we had a lovely weekend.
One of the items of furniture that I kept seeing was a simple slab of hardwood where the seat was morticed in perpendicularly near the bottom. It looked so easy to make that when I came home I decided to immediately make one.
Grabbing one of the Oak slabs I’d milled last year I sliced it in two and roughed out the basic shape using my small chainsaw:
I then cleaned the mortice & tenon with a plane and chisel to get them to fit snugly. I’d already ensured that the tenon was the same width as my chainsaw bar so it didn’t take long to square everything off.
Then I simply slipped them together:
Finally, a bit of sanding and oiling and hey presto.
Not bad for a few hour’s work. I can think of a few improvements, including pegging the seat in. Given that I’ve at least 4 more to make to go around our fire pit I hope to get pretty efficient at making them.